


go honey go

by sandyk



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Bisexual Peter Parker, College Student Peter Parker, F/M, Kidnapped Peter Parker, Panic Attacks, kidnapping not on screen, resisting therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:48:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26950114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandyk/pseuds/sandyk
Summary: Two and a half years after Peter and MJ last talked/saw each other, MJ walks into Peter's strip club. (He's just a bouncer.) And also maybe Peter is having a really rough time or he's doing just fine? Peter's not sure.
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Peter Parker/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20
Collections: Trope Bingo: Round Fifteen





	go honey go

**Author's Note:**

> Not mine, no profit garnered. For the trope bingo spot striptease. Title from Aimee Mann's Great Beyond. Thanks A so much!!

Peter had acquired the oddest job. It wasn't really the oddest, but it wasn't one he'd seen advertised. And he'd needed a job very very badly. Not for money. His tuition for MIT, room, board, and a nice used car were all paid in full by Tony Stark. Peter had put up token resistance, but Tony had just rolled his eyes and said, "You know I paid Captain America a salary, right? And Black Widow. I paid for everything. All of your education is actually cheaper than that, bankrolling the Avengers in the past and present and forever." Peter would have pointed out that the salary and food, etc, for multiple people was of course more than even tuition and room and board for one person, but he actually didn't want May worrying about money. So he was fine. 

But it was about his mind. MIT was more challenging than high school by a mile, but it still only took up so much time. Then he had Spider-man, but those two together and sleeping still left him with free time. Peter hated free time, he had an unhealthy fear of sitting with himself alone. It was actually a perfectly logical response, in Peter's opinion, to being kidnapped and recovering from that. He would get over it eventually so it was fine. So he decided to get a job and two weeks later he was recruited to his current position. 

He was a "stealth" bouncer at a strip club. He was in the club, roaming around, stopping fights, quietly defusing, and at the end of the night, walking the dancers to their cars. He was the anti creeps-that-strip-clubs-always-attract. It paid pretty well, even if Peter mostly put the money into savings or sent it to May or gave out as Spider-man. 

It had been five months working there, the night MJ walked in. He was used to the job, he liked it, he was pretty sure he was immune to being embarrassed by the nude body, all genitals included. The club had a men's night so he'd really seen a lot. With consent from the dancers, they had enough creeps in their lives. 

So MJ walked in, with a group of Black women, all young and gorgeous. It was a mixed night, men and women strippers. That was a new offering from the club that was doing surprisingly well. Peter was lounging against the wall, clocking people coming in and people already there. MJ looked amazing, like she always did. Peter hadn't seen her outside of social media pics other people shared in more than two years. She was wearing a grey jumpsuit and white heels and she mostly stood out from her friends because she was just that beautiful and Peter knew her. Had known her. 

She'd just decided, with no consultation, that since she was going to the University of Chicago and he wasn't going to be anywhere near Chicago, they should just break up. He wanted to stay in touch at least, she said no. He wasn't an idiot. He could tell she was upset, it wasn't because she didn't love him. He wasn't going to harass her into staying friends with him. 

Now she was in his strip club, at his job, only paying attention to her friends and he was trying not to be distracted. He wandered in the club, avoiding MJ's table just because and because he wanted to avoid her. Not that he had a reason to avoid her, she'd decided to dump him, and he was doing great. He was a little bit taller than he'd been in high school, by almost an inch. 

He was grinning at the thought when MJ did notice him. He saw her startle in his peripheral vision, bless those spider powers, and just kept walking. Then he kept walking because he saw trouble. Certified creepy loner, sitting by himself at a table, and everything about his body language said bad guy bad guy. Peter grabbed a chair and sat down next to the Creep. Peter leaned in and said, "Hey, man, hey hey. Are you here by yourself?"

Creep leaned away. "I'm good, man, go away."

"You're here by yourself, huh?" Peter stretched his neck and said, "All by yourself, right?"

Creep hissed, which was a little too on the nose. Then he reached in his pocket and took something out. 

"Oh, hey," Peter said. He grabbed the knife and used a little strength to pry it out of the guy's hands. "No one needs a knife here. You don't need it."

Creepy winced and stared at Peter. Peter smiled. "We're gonna make this simple. I'm keeping your knife and you're leaving and never coming back. And that it includes the parking lot, the streets around here. In return, we don't call the cops. I'm sure that works for you."

Creepy got up and cradled his injured fingers in his other hand. "Fine," he huffed. Peter signalled the bouncer who wasn't stealth to make sure Creep left the club and watched the very large man escort Creep out. He ducked to the back where the dancers had their dressing rooms and spaces to get ready. He squatted down to his tiny space, opened the little safe and put the knife in there. He looked down at his hand and saw an already healing line where the blade had gone in a little. He really hoped Creep cleaned his weapon. 

One of the dancers tapped his shoulder. He turned and smiled. "Hey, Mari."

"Hey," she said. Mari was major movie star beautiful, it was surreal sometimes. "I always wondered, you got a gun in there?"

He had more than one in the safe. He said, "Nah, come on, we don't get those kind of scary guys. Mostly knives or weird homemade brass knuckles. Don't worry."

"Who said I was worried?" She nodded, though, like she was reassured. "How's your night going? I just got in." 

"Mostly okay," he said. "Okay. I saw my ex out there, my high school girlfriend? She dumped me. She looks great. I have no idea why she's in Boston."

Mari pushed her hair back and then ruffled it. It was one of her pre-show nervous jitters. Next she would start braiding her hair, taking it out, and braiding it again. She would settle on school girl pigtails as she called it. She said, "High school, huh? So a few months ago?" 

"Two and a half years ago, I'm not that much of a baby, Miss-Only-Twenty-One-Months-Older-Than-Me," he said. 

"And she dumped you, ouch. What did you do?"

"Nothing," he said. "She went to Chicago and I was coming here, so she dumped me. I guess she thought we couldn't be long-distance."

"She was right," Mari said. She was braiding her hair. "Is she pretty?"

"Almost as pretty as you," he said. They were about equally pretty, he thought. But Mari couldn't hear that when she was in her nervous pre-show state. 

"Want me to walk out and talk to you after, make her jealous?" She raked her fingers through her hair, taking out the braids. 

"That's a great offer," he said. "But I'm good. I don't need her to feel bad. I don't."

"But you want to," she said. "You're not a saint."

Peter shook his head. "I don't want to, either. Trust me, I have other exes where I'd love that offer but not her."

Mari took a few uneven breaths. She looked at herself in the mirror. "Okay, let me know when you need that." He squeezed her shoulders. 

He did brace himself a little when he went back into the club. Maybe she'd already left? But no such luck, MJ was looking right at him when he came out of the back. She even smiled and waved. He waved back. She took it as something because she stood up and walked towards him. 

He reminded himself he was a) Spider-man, b) taller than he used to be by at least an inch, c) getting straight As, d) not an asshole and e) Spider-man. 

MJ actually looked a little anxious, but she also looked more pretty than he remembered. "Hey," she said. "Do you, that's an employee entrance."

"Yes," Peter said. "I work here. Kind of a bouncer."

"Would have been cool if you were a dancer. That would have impressed my friends," MJ said. She was definitely anxious.

Peter shrugged. "I don't have, there's a lot to that job. It's not easy. It's performing, you know? Not my strong suit."

MJ nodded. "Actually, are there guys stripping tonight? So far it's just been women."

"They start alternating at midnight," Peter said. He stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans. "Hey, you aren't in Chicago."

"No," MJ said. "It's winter break. I don't have much reason to go back to New York, I mean, my dad moved to Providence and my mom had already moved. One of my friends at school offered to let me come back with her here to Boston." She laughed a little while she looked at the floor. She said, "Honestly, I assumed you were back in New York, but I do keep looking over my shoulder. Didn't think I'd run into you here."

"Yeah, it's a different job," Peter said, like he was very very unintelligent. "But I was in the news yesterday." Maybe she'd forgotten he was Spider-man? That seemed really unlikely. She still talked to Ned, no way she'd forgotten. His mind was malfunctioning. 

"Oh, probably. I don't track that kind of news," she said. "I stopped." She sort of shrugged. "You didn't."

"Nope," he said. Ned, he could talk about Ned. "Did you see Ned's vacationing in Albany? Can you imagine? Oh, I want to spend winter break in Albany."

"I know," she said, laughing. "He must really like that guy."

"Oh, he does, I've seen them together," Peter said. He took a breath and then said, "Um, I'm here until about an hour after closing, so maybe we could get together tomorrow? If you wanted."

"Oh," MJ said. "Yeah. Wow, you were always so much nicer than me. Nice to see it hasn't changed --"

"It's not nice, you know I wanted to stay in touch," he said. 

"Even after all this time, though," she said. She forced a smile. "Yeah, I would. That would be cool. Um, I can, let me give you my new phone number."

"Mine changed, too," Peter said. He got out his phone and they did the dance of exchanging numbers. 

Suddenly she sort of lunged forward and hugged him. He remembered the smell of her hair. Then she pulled back. "Okay." She went back to her table. 

Peter mostly went back to work. He was definitely distracted, especially when Mari finally came out and was very unsubtle about checking out which girl he'd been talking about. He stood near her as she was giving a lapdance and when she was done, she hooked her arm in his. She said, "Girl in the grey jumpsuit? Dude, she's gorgeous. Did she look like that in high school?"

"Basically," Peter said. "She didn't wear much make up back then but yeah, basically."

"And she wanted to date you," Mari said. She dropped his arm as they arrived in the back. Mari started to change. 

Peter took out his phone when he felt the text notification. MJ had texted. She wrote, "are u dating that super hot foxy stripper?? She is so hot" followed by a number of emojis and then a gif. 

Peter held up his phone to Mari, saying, "She thinks you're hot, too." 

Mari smiled, showing her teeth. She took his phone and said, "That's very sweet of her." She started typing a response.

"Hey," Peter said.

"I'm just telling the truth," Mari said, flashing the screen to him. She'd written "we're just fucking sometimes"

"I wouldn't write that," Peter said.

Mari hit send and passed him his phone back. "Would you say sleeping together sometimes? Friends with benefits."

Peter said, "It feels a little rude saying fucking to the first girl I ever, you know."

"Wow, you had game in high school," Mari said. 

"Not in the slightest," Peter said. 

He was really only sleeping with Mari occasionally. Ten times in the last four months since she'd started at the club. He'd slept with two other dancers, Juan and Helen, but those two only once each. Now they were friends. Peter could be friends with people he'd had sex with. He actually was friends with most of them, all of them except one. That girl had been a total jerk, though.

MJ replied "PP stop letting other people type on your phone"

He replied, "I told her I wouldn't write that"

"But you are sleeping together? Lucky shit"

He sent her a thumbs up. Then he looked up and he saw Tiffany playing with her necklace, pushing the pendant around. He walked over to her and said, "Hey, what's up?"

"I thought I saw my ex, it probably wasn't him," she said. 

"Do you have a pic? I'll check," he said. Tiffany didn't have a picture of him since she'd deleted all of them but she found one on his facebook. Peter went out to the club to check. 

Tiffany wasn't wrong, her asshole ex was out there. Peter managed to convince the dickhead to leave without breaking any bones this time but he was still intimidating enough in his way. He may have bruised, but he didn't break anything. He went back to Tiffany and said, "Wasn't him. Don't worry."

Tiffany smiled at him. "You're lying, but thank you. I feel better knowing he's gone."

Peter said, "Fine, I'm lying. But he's gone."

He worked for another few hours. MJ waved again on her way out when the club closed. Peter went back to the dancers and started walking them out to their cars. He stared at one person he saw lurking at the edge of the parking lot. After the dancers pulled out in their cars, he stalked over and watched the lurker run. People were so predictable. Juan was the last to leave and Peter walked out with him since they were friends. "You going straight home after this," Juan said, leaning on his car door. 

Peter shook his head. "Probably. You're not really hitting on me, are you?"

"No, fine," Juan said. "My sometime boyfriend is being a dick, I was just thinking."

"Thank you, I feel very popular tonight," Peter said. 

He went inside and did his clean up. He got his cash share of the night's take. He drove home. Ned was in Albany so Peter had their tiny apartment to himself. It was three am so Ned was certainly awake. He texted "dude, MJ was in the club tonight"

Ned called him immediately. "I prefer to talk so my hands are available."

"What are you playing?"

Ned spent five minutes explaining the game. Then he said, "MJ told me she saw you first. Also she was mad you were working at a strip club and I didn't tell her."

"You've been very good at balancing us, even though that was basically all her," Peter said. 

"I said that, but without sounding like I blamed her," Ned said. "She had her reasons. I don't tell her anything about you unless I'm freaking out, until tonight. She was really excited to see you're now dating strippers."

"I'm not dating any of the people I work with, it's all been casual," Peter said. "I hope you said that."

"Yeah, wouldn't want MJ thinking you weren't available." 

"I mean, I'm over her, but also, I wouldn't mind. But she's still at University of Chicago, so I guess she's not interested."

Ned said, "Maybe she's realized that the internet exists and it's worth a try?"

"Have I realized that?"

"I hope so," Ned said. "Wait, gotta go, my boy woke up. I'm gonna show him this game so we can play this together."

"Got it," Peter said. 

This was winter break, so Peter could sleep in and he had nothing to do all day. He hated it. He didn't even have work. This was the kind of thing he hated, having nothing to do. When he turned on the TV and tried to watch a movie, he started to feel jittery and overwhelmed. His anxiety rose in his chest. The shrink Tony had forced him to see six months ago hadn't really gotten around to helping much before Peter quit going but Peter had formed the impression that he was wrong to think he would just get over it. Peter thought he was definitely going to just get over it. So perfectly fine as long as he kept his hands busy and did things. He was not in a cold warehouse and no one was torturing him, so eventually his brain would catch up to that reality. He just needed time. 

He'd been kidnapped nineteen months ago. 

He was just about to give up and try running to Cape Cod when he had a text from MJ. She suggested coffee and named a place that was just a few T stops away. He replied immediately that he was ready whenever. Unfortunately for him, she wanted to wait two hours. He decided to run for an hour and a half while listening to an audiobook. It was a book about sex work so it was interesting and applicable to his job. He was showered and nicely dressed and on time at the coffee place. 

MJ came in a few minutes later, in jeans and a very nice burgundy sweater. She smiled at him and sat down across from him. "Hey," she said. "I know it's no strip club, but you don't work here."

"The strip club isn't that exciting when you work there," Peter said. 

"But you're a bouncer, you get to protect people," MJ said. "That's exciting for you."

"It's more nice than exciting," Peter said. "I like the job. Do you have a job uh, in Chicago?"

"No, I like my free time," MJ said. "You used to like free time. Not anymore, right? Ned had a lot to say about that when we were talking this morning."

"That's uncomfortable. I don't like you guys talking about me that way," Peter said. He knew Ned would talk about Peter's problems with anyone Ned trusted. Ned had ratted him out to Tony and May when this problem started to develop. "Anyway, it's a pretty logical reaction, if you ask me. I was kidnapped, had a slow recovery, it's fine, I'll get over it."

"Yeah, that's totally how it works," she said. She wasn't smiling at all. "I stopped tracking, tracking your appearances and Google alerts because it made me anxious. Literally, anxious. I went to therapy, ugh, don't worry, I didn't give you away. But I went to therapy and got medicated because it was so stressful caring about you. Not to make you feel guilty, but you have to know you're full of shit if you think you will just get over it."

He didn't say anything. He played with his cup for a moment and then he said, "Okay. So how's Chicago? What have you been doing?"

She nodded and then she did smile. She started talking about all the cool activists she'd been working with, supporting. She was even more active than she'd been in New York and she was doing a lot and studying all these things. "Also, I scored a Dick Wolf trifecta. I've been an extra on all three Chicago shows."

"That's awesome," he said. "What do you think you're gonna do after graduation? I'm trying to phrase that in a not pushy way, model the change you want to be in the world, you know?"

"I don't know," MJ said. "I'm interested in a masters of social work and being a therapist because all I see is people who are so under-served but then my mom says go to medical school so you can prescribe medication because that makes a difference, too."

"That sounds like something you'd be awesome at," Peter said.

"Really? Because I was so personable and welcoming when I was in high school?" She smiled again.

"Yeah, but you've got the basics. You care about people, that's important," Peter said. 

She'd finished her latte. She looked him over and then said, "You could show me your apartment."

"I could, sure," Peter said. "Wait, are you hitting on me?"

"Yup," she said. 

"That's really awesome," Peter said. 

His bedroom was a converted closet, with about two inches of floor space on either side of his bed. He'd put shelves on both walls for clothes and books but basically, all he did was sleep in his bed. Ned had his own bedroom which had a desk and large screen so he could have his privacy if needed. Otherwise, they were both generally hanging out in the living room. But just then, MJ and Peter were in his bedroom and MJ was already half naked. She said, "Condom?"

He reached behind a stack of books. "Here you go." 

She said, "Why hide them away?"

"It feels tacky," Peter said. "Even if I'm the only one who's ever in here."

It was great. She was familiar, she was MJ, but this was twenty years old MJ, and it was also different. Still great. He laid on his back and stared at the ceiling. 

MJ said, "Doesn't this bedroom feel claustrophobic? I mean, you were kidnapped. Sorry."

"No, I was in a really big room that time. Like a warehouse. Even when they were trying to dissect me for fun, it was still a big room. When I was in high school, I was claustrophobic because a warehouse was dropped on me, but I got over it," he said. "You don't want to hear about this."

"I don't," MJ said. "I only know because Ned told me. About the kidnapping. When it happened. It was awful, though." She sat up. "Like, no one was saying Peter Parker had disappeared, keep your eye out because we have to protect your secret identity, and sure, Spider-man is missing, but he's been gone longer before so don't worry. I felt like I couldn't breathe, every day, I can't imagine how May survived it."

"I know," Peter said. He didn't know what May had done. Or Tony or Ned. They didn't tell him because he was already fucked up enough. That was the impression he had. Maybe he was a bad nephew for not asking May. He could ask her. He could talk about it. Maybe he would. Peter said, "So I guess this is a one-time thing."

"Yeah," MJ said. "But it would be anyway, not because of Spider-man, because of Chicago and Boston." She scooted off the bed and started getting dressed. "You haven't told anyone else you're Spider-man, right?"

"No," Peter said. He'd only even thought about it once, but then that relationship had crashed and burned. They were still friends but not the same way. He grabbed clean clothes and got dressed himself. 

Then they were just sitting in the living room. MJ was flipping through all the streaming services Ned had rigged onto their TV. MJ said, "Sounds really lonely for you."

"I'm not lonely, I keep busy," he said. "Not that I wouldn't appreciate staying in contact with you. When you have time between organizing."

She nodded and smiled. She settled on a documentary about sloths. "We can watch this, right?"

"Of course," he said. He was perfectly fine for the whole ninety minutes he sat on the couch with her and watched sloths. He got up once to make them both coffee. Tony had sent a fancy machine, so it wasn't just coffee, it was a latte. 

Then it was over and she got up. "Okay," she said. She was nervous again. "I promise to text you more often. And you can follow my insta."

"Awesome," he said. "Great, great. It was really nice seeing you." 

Then she was gone and he had a screen full of documentary options. He lasted about ten minutes before he started to panic. He hated being alone, he hated not being busy. He'd made a Spider-man schedule, he didn't need to go out tonight and Tony had laid down some excellent, logical rules about not going out too much. It was to protect Peter. The idea was that Peter wouldn't be so easy to track. No more kidnapping, probably. 

If he called Mari, she'd offer him her anti-anxiety pills again. He'd slept over at her place and she'd left to do something, letting him sleep in. By the time she got back, he was curled in a ball against the window, breathing heavily. She was very understanding about everything. Unlike Peter, she went to doctors for her issues. But unlike Peter, she didn't have one specific bad thing that had happened to her. Her pills had worked on him, he'd taken four and been fine. Fine-ish. 

May told him, more than once, that he didn't win any points by suffering or being in pain. There was no reward at the end of the day when he had just been miserable and not asked for help. It sounded like MJ would agree with her. Everyone Peter knew agreed with her. Peter was not fine. 

He needed a project, something to work on. Improving his webshooters, again. Something. He had to do something. 

It had happened right at the end of his freshman year. They'd had him for seventeen days. Then Rhodey had come through the wall. Tony and other people were killing the kidnappers. That was nice of them. It took a whole month before he was back at his full strength. Nothing took Peter a whole month to recover from. Nothing before or since. 

And he was fine. Perfectly fine. He hadn't even started panicking when he was alone until last year, in December. But school had been really busy. 

He was definitely being a fucking idiot. May was thinking it, Tony said it out loud more than once, Ned danced around it and he had no one else who really knew him. He was close to a lot of other people but nobody that saw him totally. Mari was literally the only other person who knew he had freak outs and that was only because he hadn't held himself together one time at her place. That was really sad for him. 

It felt like his blood was rushing everywhere, bubbling against his veins. He left the apartment and started walking until he found a coffee place that was busy. He ordered a coffee and slid down into his seat. With people around him, he was good. Totally good. 

He looked at his phone and started following MJ on instagram. He scrolled through Twitter. 

He called May. "Hey," he said. "What do you think I should do, to get better? I'm only asking because you won't say I told you so." He even laughed a little.


End file.
